Monday, March 9, 2009

A Hard Pill to Swallow...

The other day, we had a script come in for prenatal vitamins for a 15 year-old girl. OK, I get it, kids are having sex and getting pregnant younger and younger these days. But, on the script, the doctor wrote "Patient needs chewable tablets" - and the really stupid thing is that they exist! Yes, some companies make chewable prenatal vitamins... Maybe the doctor and parents should have thought ahead and gotten the girl chewable birth control pills. Yeah, they make those too...

10 comments:

Allegedly, the chewable is to make it easier on the stomach or for people who have trouble swallowing tabs. My all time youngest pregnancy was 13. She was as clueless as her mother. I am pretty sure Gma is now raising her daughter and her daughter's daughter...

It's not just youngsters using chewables. My wife used them when we had our first, and she was 29 at the time; so did my tech's wife. Not everyone can swallow horse pills. (I've also seen women simultaneously taking prenatals and Micronor, so it's not even always pregnant women.)

I also remember seeing, back when I was an intern, a girl in her early teens picking up Augmentin, and the computer flagged the interaction with her oral contraceptives. I was trying to counsel her on that interaction (while wondering what such a young girl was doing that she would need them), and she was entirely clueless as to what I was talking about. Turned out she was using them to regulate her period, not to prevent pregnancy.

As it happens, chewable prenatal tablets are getting hard to find; the only ones my wholesaler carried were Natachew/Nutrinate, by KV/Ethex, and those are all recalled. If you know of others, preferably with Kosher certification, please let me know... I have quite a few patients, besides my wife, who would be very glad to have them.

what a bitchy thing to say, I have a friend who is 20 years old and still takes chewable pain killers because she always gags on normal ones. Whenever I get ill I use chewable pain killers for the same reason - if I'm feeling rough, especially if I have a sore throat or I'm worried I might be sick. This girl could have had morning sickness for all you know

Do they really make chewable birth control pills? I took birth control pills for reasons other than birth conrol but stopped because the pills always cause me to gag. If I could chew the pill that would be SO much better. I'm almost 29 btw and not a child. I know another lady who is older than me who has trouble swallowing pills, too. Maybe you shouldn't prejudge someone.

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The vast majority of names, ages, genders, and descriptions of people blogged about have been altered to protect their identity. I do take HIPAA laws seriously.If you should happen to recognize yourself in one of my stories, it's because you've done something stupid - just be happy that you're smart enough to recognize it, and promise yourself and others not to do anything to become a subject of my blog again...